I stand a messenger.
I am the wise man bearing empty boxes,
the widower towing wisps of smoke.

They cover me with their dreams,
their stories. My hand holds
a brain-child, my shoes are set
and yet I never move. Well,
I say,
nor do they.

I press on, turbaned, through
the soft invisible rain. They know
as well as I, I am standing on a sinking ship.

Some hopes have washed away. The frogs
cling to them greedy, sucking up
the maybe like nectar.
Flat pink roses, imaginings of love,
succumb. Lazuli orbs blink and bloat,
wisdom whirling down the drain.

Others, steadfast turquoise rings
and red buckles from those Brooklyn
dancing days, stick still. The
glue holds on a moonflower ring,
old as breathing,
and a grandmother holds a child. A gold-spangled scrap
ends in her red-carpet gown.

A juicy purple jewel slips from my
boot. Another job, gone. Now all
there is for her or him is life in rain,
a button coat, sailing on a melting toy,
in a boiling stream of green stones
and drowned roses.